Madam, - As the Republic's first Minister for Labour, Constance Markievicz sat in the first Sinn Féin cabinet with both Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins. The only woman commander in the Easter Rising, and also the first woman to be elected to the Westminster Parliament, this privileged Gore-Booth beauty was to live and die as a working-class hero.
Worn out by unstinting service to the republican cause, the urban poor and women's empowerment, she died, prematurely aged in 1927. Over 100,000 people crowded Dublin for her State funeral.
Also a founding member of the Fianna Fáil Party, and one of its first TDs, Countess Markievicz has been an inspiration to generations of Irish people - women, poets, care workers, socialists, authors, nationalists, romantics, feminists, costumiers, republicans, balladeers, trade unionists and anyone with a bit of public spirit. Constance and her poet sister, Eva Gore-Booth, also have considerable international reputations.
Their family home is now on the market for €3 million (The Irish Times, May 22nd). This unique 1830s neo-classical mansion stands in good condition in the heart of the "Yeats country". The interior is largely as it was when Constance lived there as a girl: nursery wallpaper, rocking horse, piano and all. Lissadell House and its contents as they exist are not only important heritage artefacts, they constitute a national treasure.
The price to the State is equivalent to that of one high-tech addition to our moribund health service, or the annual earnings of a clutch of consultants.
What a bargain the acquisition of Lissadell House would be for our cultural health and well-being! - Yours, etc.,
JOHN STEPHENSON,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
Madam, - It's payback time. Perhaps the Soldiers of Destiny would repay this country's debt to the Gore-Booths, and Constance in particular, by buying, and preserving, Lissadell House for the nation.
Three million - it's nothing compared with IDA grants to foreign companies, or the price of a government jet.
I didn't vote for them , but they govern in my name. This citizen doesn't want a new jet. Lissadell will do nicely, thank you. - Yours, etc.,
KAREN McDONNELL,
Portobello,
Dublin 8.